My own life would be a lot simpler right now if I could come to a clear conclusion about Heidi Baker--either she is a Pentecostal Mother Teresa or a complete fraud. I am in a process of discernment that has me seeing a foggier picture than either of those conclusions. What I am certain of is that I see major factual errors in the Bakers' account of their ministry in relationship to the New Apostolic Reformation. In the days since my first post on Heidi Baker I have received considerable feedback from people urging
me to explore a variety of different stories about the Bakers and their global
ministry. Some argue that I am missing the sublime, Christian purity that they
see as the core of Heidi’s life work and they urge me to embrace the whole of her ministry. Others raise urgent questions about the nature of her accounts
of healing and want me to focus on what they see as abuse of dignity in her
accounts of healings. What I see my task as now is to focus on the range of
public evidence that I think quite clearly refutes the Bakers’ description of
the meaning they attach to the miraculous ministry of which they are a part.
What I want to do, in other words, is raise questions about the discernment
that is to be central to classical Christian reflection on the miraculous—a
discernment that is in traditional Christianity every bit as important as the
questions of whether miracles are happening or not. I hope many more will join with me in this process of discernment and go much deeper into their ministry's story than just one article or blog post.
In the Christian tradition Christians are not seen as the only people for whom miracles are done or the only people who have the power to perform miracles. Whether we are talking
about Jewish Scripture, Christian Scripture or Christian reflection through the
centuries into the present, we see that what makes a miracle a “Christian”
miracle is the meaning that it points to—a distinctly Christian meaning, a
“sign” as the Gospel of John calls it. The controversy surrounding Heidi Baker
and the extraordinary accounts of her ministry is at this point, for me, not
one of “are they happening” but rather “what meaning is being attached to
them?” What is the narrative that is attached to the apparently amazing “signs
and wonders” that accompany her? A reader who only looked at Christianity Today’s articles on
Baker—the lengthy piece by Tim Stafford and the shorter one by Tim Morgan—would
assume that the meaning attached by the Bakers is the traditional meaning that
Christians have given to “signs and wonders”—namely, as pointing to Christ and
ushering in the Kingdom’s presence. But for the Bakers there is more, much
more, that they claim to discern in the presence of these miracles. This
broader meaning is not merely ignored by Stafford, it is by my reading of reams
of public evidence actively distorted by the Bakers in the one paragraph in the
article in which the decades old controversy is even mentioned. I
want to look closely at this paragraph because I am well aware that the charges
I am going to make are serious and speak to the Bakers’ integrity and to Tim
Stafford’s reporting. Here is the account:
Though
they have lost financial support due to their association with the Toronto
movement, the Bakers are loyal to its leaders and attend their Catch the Fire
conferences in North America every year. Several leaders involved are active in
the so-called New Apostolic Reformation, a controversial charismatic movement.
But the Bakers do not promote the New Apostolic Reformation or consider
themselves to be modern-day apostles.
From reading this paragraph—the only paragraph
that even touches on the controversy over the alternative meanings the Bakers
attach to their miracles—the reader would assume that the only real controversy
is that the Bakers are “loyal” to leaders of the Toronto movement, some of whom
are “active in the so-called New Apostolic Reformation.” This one controversial
activity of theirs is considered by Stafford to be not a problem for three
reasons: 1) It is a virtuous loyalty in light of the fact that “they have lost financial
support” because of it. 2) Outside of their visit to this yearly conference
nothing is happening in their ministry that would make anyone think they
“promote” NAR. 3) They do not “consider themselves to be modern-day apostles.”
I will start with the last reason because I have
nothing to say with reference to the first reason, and lots to say with
reference to the second. As I wrote in a different post, the fact that someone
does or does not “consider themselves to be modern-day apostles” is not at all
a factor in a person’s participation in NAR. By anybody’s definition, NAR is
not a movement that is just for apostles and its main leaders are by no means
just apostles. One of the things that distinguishes NAR from other movements—and this is absolutely
vital to understand—is the belief that we are in a new era of Church History in
which God is restoring to the Church some of the so-called “five-fold gifts” of
Ephesians 4:11, namely Apostle and Prophet. Crucial to this understanding is
the belief that miracles are accompanying this “restoration” of apostolic and
prophetic gifts as signs of their authenticity. This is why the term that is
often used as a label in place of New Apostolic Reformation is the term
“apostolic and prophetic movement”. In many of the groups that participate in
this movement the leadership is made up in part by Prophetic Elders that often
meet with apostles in what one of the major groups calls an Apostolic Council
of Prophetic Elders. One need look no further than the prophetess Cindy Jacobs,
a person who is virtually synonymous with NAR and C. Peter Wagner, to see that
active leadership in apostolic and prophetic movements associated with NAR is
in no way limited to people who “consider themselves to be modern-day
apostles.”
And as should be obvious, one does not need to be
either a prophet or an apostle to be active in NAR and committed to its new
vision for government of the church. NAR sees itself as a place for all
Christians to bring all of their gifts. So the key questions are whether or not
the Bakers and their ministry are a part of prophetic and apostolic movements
and whether or not they actively promote those movements. What the publicly
available evidence shows overwhelmingly is that the Bakers are in these
prophetic and apostolic movements, they are said to be leaders of these
movements and their work to expand the impact of these movements is very much
linked with the work of C. Peter Wagner. Not a few evangelicals would be
troubled if they were aware of the theology and practice that this all carries
with it.
The easiest place to start with the evidence is a
look at the Bakers’ own ministries referred to in the CT article, Iris
Ministries and Partners in Harvest. At Iris’ global base in Nashville it is
quite clear that the Bakers view their ministry as part of an apostolic
network. The website says, under the question “Who is your pastoral covering?”,
that “As an Iris Global missions base, our direct apostolic covering are our
founders, Heidi and Rolland Baker.” This is consistent with the fact that the
Bakers themselves view their Partners in Harvest churches as being, as they put
it, under the “Apostolic Leadership" (see page 25 of link) of John and Carol Arnott, the Founding
Pastors of the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, now known as Catch the
Fire. The Arnott’s are also the leaders of Spread the Fire ministries, which
hosts the conferences that the Bakers attend every year. In addition to the
fact that the Bakers’ hundreds of churches are under the apostolic leadership
of the Arnotts and they regularly speak at major Arnott led functions, the
Bakers and Arnotts are in another very significant grouping called the Revival Alliance. In the promotional material for all of these groups, reference to
“signs and wonders” is constant.
At this point in the story it is commonplace for people who
are devoted to the Bakers to insist on a point that they
sincerely believe: The
Bakers are completely separate from C. Peter Wagner. This is said in part
because Wagner has become somewhat notorious in informed circles, be they
religious or political. People are beginning to understand the full dimensions
of his radical spirituality and revolutionary ecclesiology and this makes some
people who have been in public ministry with him understandably nervous about their reputations. I do not know what the Bakers think and I do not
know what the Bakers say to reporters or scholars, but I do know what the
Bakers have done for years with C. Peter Wagner and with his key leaders. An
examination of this record shows that the Bakers--their ministries, their
alliances, their writing, their speaking---are in fact actively participating in ministry with C. Peter Wagner and his broad range of ministries. It is impossible
to sustain a narrative of their life's ministry consistent with what they claim in the paragraph above. This reality makes it incumbent upon the Bakers to make dramatic changes if
they really do feel about Wagner what some of their supporters seem convinced
they feel. Here is the evidence I refer to.
CHE ANH, REVIVAL ALLIANCE and the WAGNER LEADERSHIP
INSTITUTE
Che Anh is a long-time member of and leader in C. Peter Wagner’s groups of apostles, Global Spheres and International Coalition of Apostles (ICA). Che Anh is also the International Chancellor of C. Peter
Wagner’s very own Wagner Leadership Institute which has its one sentence vision
statement the development of apostolic leaders in line with their understanding
of the five-fold gifts of Ephesians 4:11-12. Anh and his wife are, together
with the Bakers and Arnotts and three other couples, the leaders of the Revival Alliance that I referred to earlier. Randy and DeAnne Clark are one of the
other couples in this Revival Alliance. Randy teaches a class at the Wagner
Institute available online, with C. Peter Wagner and Che Anh, titled
“Developing Structure for Apostolic Ministry” which bills itself as teaching
“the ‘New Apostolic Reformation’ that we see transpiring in the Body of Christ
Today”. Bill and Beni Johnson are another couple in the alliance. Bill is on
the faculty of the Wagner Leadership Institute where you can take his course
“Walking in the Supernatural”. Che Anh is refreshingly blunt about his view of
what the Church is to discern in the miracles and revivals he believes are
happening through the works of so-called prophets and apostles today. He made
his five-fold convictions abundantly clear in his book When Heaven Comes Down, a book with a foreword by the Bakers. Here is his explanation of current religious revivals:
As I look back through the
history of revival, I see that every wave of God’s outpouring is important
because, in each revival, He restores something. In fact, over the past
half-century, we see that in each movement God restored an office within the
five-fold ministry, including apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and
teachers.
...In the “Third Wave” of the
1980s, God brought forth prophets, as John Wimber introduced the “Kansas City
prophets” Paul Cain, Mike Bickle, Bob Jones, James Goll, and Jill Austin.
Other prophets emerged during that period, including my friend and covenant
brother Lou Engle, my sister in the Lord Cindy Jacobs, Jane Hamon and Chuck
Pierce. The 1994 revival in Toronto restored the office of the apostle
with the birth of many apostolic networks, including John and Carol Arnott’s
Partners in Harvest, Rick Joyner’s MorningStar, Bill Johnson’s Global Legacy,
Heidi and Rolland Baker’s Iris Ministries and or church’s own Harvest
International Ministry.
Now, in 2009, we see the
convergence of all five of these restored offices coming together and being
expressed through the Body of Christ in His followers the saints.
When you know how the Revival Alliance was
formed, all of these interconnections and shared purposes between the Bakers,
the Revival Alliance and Wagner’s ministries are not a surprise. Che Anh tells the story often of how Heidi Baker received a prophetic word from the prophet
Bob Jones calling for an alliance of major apostolic networks. The coming
together of these various networks was widely heralded in 2008 in mainstream
charismatic media, one of which emphasized the global significance of the alliance under the headline
“Revivalists Aim to Spark Worldwide Revival”.
TODD BENTLEY AND THE REVIVAL ALLIANCE
One of the immediate “fruits” of this worldwide revival was
in Lakeland, Florida. It is here that the prophetic certainty of the Revival
Alliance and its narrative of a new day for Christianity took on the appearance
of profound scandal. In a speech that must be seen to be fully appreciated, Che
Anh spoke in Lakeland with Todd Bentley. With great conviction the two of them
explained that the prophetic word from Heidi Baker via Bob Jones was part of a
tremendous, supernatural confirmation that both fulfilled the work of the
Toronto Blessing and helped launch a so-called “third wave” of the Holy Spirit.
The timing of this proud pronouncement could not have been any worse for Anh
and the Revival Alliance. Anyone who knows what comes next can understand why
the Bakers would be particularly ashamed to admit and would actively hide from
their participation in apostolic ideology and practice. Under all of the “prophetic”
power and “apostolic” zeal that the Revival Alliance could muster they engaged
in an elaborate, “sacred” commissioning service of Todd Bentley as an apostle.
In this dramatic service, prophets and apostles from around the world gathered
around Todd in a sign of unity and power in this new apostolic age. C. Peter
Wagner, together with other representatives of the most extreme forms of New
Apostolic Reformation fervor, spoke words of prophecy and anointing over this
man with the certainty that the miracles of Lakeland were part of the
confirmation that Bentley was to be commissioned as an extraordinary apostle.
Given the deep connection between Baker’s Revival Alliance and the Todd Bentley scandal it is not surprising that Bentley felt compelled to single out the
Revival Alliance for apology when the true scope of his problems became evident.
But the damage was done. The questions were being asked. The accountability was being demanded. Even within those elements of the charismatic movement that
have most welcomed the notion that apostles and prophets are being restored in
a direct act of God, there was pause for reflection and concern. A man whose
miracles were seen as a vital part of the evidence of his anointing into this
new, fast-growing reordering of the church around apostolic leadership was
quickly seen as a seriously immature Christian in spite of the rush to anoint him an apostle.
C. Peter Wagner was shaken by this incident. By
his own telling he had been involved in the Lakeland Outpouring, as he and
others call it, from the earliest stages. It is clear from the narrative that
the working relationship between Wagner’s group of apostles, at that time just the ICA, and
Baker’s Revival Alliance was as strong as critics have suggested. Given Che
Anh’s participation in both groups, this should not be a surprise, but it must
be emphasized because some continue to hold to an illusion that an invisible
wall exists between Wagner’s extremism and Baker. Wagner’s account speaks
matter-of-factly of how his ICA worked with the Revival Alliance throughout the
outpouring and into the immediate aftermath from Bentley’s scandal. Writing on
the day that the scandal hit the news, Wagner recounted the history of the
Outpouring before and in the immediate wake of Bentley’s fall.
Lakeland Outpouring I, in which Todd Bentley was
the main figure, is now history. Lakeland Outpouring II, in which Stephen
Strader of Ignited Church is the main figure, has begun. The Outpouring started
in a local church, went to a tent, and now is back in the local church. My
suggestion is that we no longer use the term “Lakeland Outpouring” but rather
distinguish between Lakeland I and Lakeland II because they are very different…
In the Lakeland I case, I am elated at the way things are turning out. The
Revival Alliance with whom Todd was aligned on June 23 has kicked into action
with a vengeance. Ché Ahn and Bill Johnson, like me, were overseas when things
broke, but John Arnott stepped up to the plate and moved in apostolically. It
has since become clear that Todd’s Fresh Fire Board could not have handled the
situation, Stephen Strader and Ignited Church could not, nor could any of his
other close friends. Only the Revival Alliance could.
Wagner’s
explanation of his and the Revival Alliance’s participation in the
commissioning service is equally candid and equally clear about his active role
in it.
Previous to around the middle of June, my interest in Lakeland was about
a 2 on a scale of 1-10. Then I got a call from Stephen Strader, the host pastor
who was a member of ICA, which I lead, with a passionate appeal for apostolic
intervention because chaos and confusion had begin to invade the Outpouring I.
Toward the end of the hour we were talking, I received one of my infrequent
direct words from God: “Alignment!” Just one word, but I knew I had a divine
command and responsibility.
Once I knew that God had assigned me to initiate some sort of apostolic
intervention at Stephen’s side, I began praying and consulting with close
colleagues. In less than two days I discovered that Todd Bentley had no formal,
established apostolic alignment. I asked God how I should proceed, especially
since I had no inclination to attempt an apostle-evangelist approach and expect
that Bentley would submit to or even listen to what I had to say if I made an
appointment with him in Lakeland. I felt that proper apostolic protocol would
be for me to deal with one or more peer-level apostles to whom Todd had aligned
apostolically. Since as yet he had no such alignment, I began asking God how
such an alignment might come about. He directed me to my close friend, Ché Ahn,
who himself is apostolically aligned with me and who also had been close to
Bentley for years. Ché agreed that the best apostolic protocol would be for
Todd to align with the Revival Alliance if he were willing. Ché called him and
Bentley agreed to submit publicly to the Revival Alliance.
This
scandal afforded the Bakers an opportunity, a very public opportunity, to make
clear whatever differences they had with C. Peter Wagner and his conception of
the New Apostolic Reformation. It would have been perfectly understandable for
them to have done so. But in the years since this scandal highlighted for
anyone interested the connections between Wagner’s work and Baker’s, not much
has changed institutionally to warrant anything like the assessment the Bakers
provided Stafford. Everything I have written above about the membership of the
Revival Alliance, Wagner’s ICA and the Wagner Leadership Institute is based on
up to the date material. Che Anh remains a bridge figure between the two
groups, the Revival Alliance remains a uniting group between the various
factions and the Wagner Leadership Institute is available for those who want to
be trained by figures from both groups. The Arnott’s ministry continues to
advertise its television ministry with C. Peter Wagner’s picture on the web
page and its conference page continues to feature Heidi Baker as an upcoming
speaker. Videos of Heidi Baker advertising the next big event on the movement’s
calendar are available for anyone to see. While the symbiotic relationship
between these major individuals and institutions in the New Apostolic
Reformation has not changed, what has changed, remarkably, is that a central
figure in this movement is being lauded in a cover story in the most significant
Christian magazine in America. Its sanitized history of Mama Heidi’s active
participation in a movement that most would consider outside the mainstream of
evangelical conviction is a sad day in the proud history of Christianity Today. That magazine has
been a part of my journey for 25 years. I am proud to be published in the pages
of its sister publication, Books &
Culture. But I am troubled and disappointed. I understand those who call
for this story to be corrected and I hope those with access to the Bakers will share my determination to set the record straight.
